Certain embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to railways, and in particular to maintenance of way with apparatuses and methods for railway fastening component adjustment.
With the hundreds of thousands of miles of railroad track traversing the United States alone, in addition to the great lengths throughout other countries of the world, maintenance of way is a tremendous and important effort. One aspect of maintenance of way is railway tie maintenance. Railway ties are typically made of wood or other materials that age and deteriorate over time due to railway use and environmental conditions. As a result, railway ties eventually require replacement with new railway ties.
There are multiple steps in a process of railway tie replacement. Rails of railroad tracks are typically fastened to railway ties with a combination of railway spikes, tie plates fastened to the railway ties with the railway spikes, and railway anchors attached to undersides of the rails to anchor the rails to sides of the railway ties. Under current work practices, a typical tie replacement gang comprises several unique machines, in some cases 20 and more, forming a long line and arranged in the necessary order to perform sequential tasks for removing an old, worn railway tie and replacing it with a new railway tie. The work window is often 8-12 hours long and typically includes 2,000-5,000 ties that are replaced per day. Several issues are presented by the process, including issues redounding in inefficiencies, costs, and risks for personal injury. The trend is toward shorter and shorter work windows, with a desire for more productivity. So, more productive equipment is needed. Also, at the end of an allotted time of a work window, due to the sheer number of machines in a work gang that must get off the main track onto the side track in order to allow normal rail traffic to pass, the process of moving all machines onto the side track can take several minutes.
Thus, there is a need to solve these problems and provide for apparatuses and methods for railway fastening component adjustment. These and other needs are addressed by the present disclosure.